Christmas Short Stories Anthology

A Cinnabar Moth Publishing anthology, A Cold Christmas and the Darkest of Winters is a collection of short stories with themes that range from sad to dark to horrifying. Each story is set during Christmas or in Winter. Many talented authors worked to create these short stories, and we are proud to present them to you in this anthology.

Paxton Peterson’s favorite day of the year is his annual Gay Boy Christmas dinner. He’s checked and double-checked his to-do list, because nothing stresses him out like the unexpected. Confident everything will run smoothly, Paxton embarks on his yearly snowshoed hike through the Rocky Mountains near his home. His perfectly planned evening is cut short by Logan Charles’s careless enjoyment of his brother’s snowmobile, and Paxton is stranded in the woods. It’s the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened to him - or maybe the best.

Originally published in an 1896 edition of The Home Monthly, "The Burglar's Christmas" tells the story Crawford, a homeless man in Chicago who has not eaten recently and considers stealing food on Christmas Eve. Reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son, this tale reflects on the nature of forgiveness. This recording of "The Burglar's Christmas" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

B.D. Anklevich, the jolliest old elf, brings you his collection of twisted Christmas short stories for the holidays. Filled with the strange, the creepy, the unusual, the nasty, the heartwarming, and the jolly, this holiday collection is sure to become an annual staple of your Christmas traditions. The book is packed full of stories, with one novella, four novelettes, and three short stories to brighten...or darken your Yule. It even includes one novelette co-written by the Dunesteef's Rish Outfield. No holiday is complete without Christmas Creatures.

From the creator of Dalziel and Pascoe comes a fantastic collection of crime stories complete with a foreword by Mick Herron.

From the internationally best-selling author of The Alchemist comes The Pine Tree at St. Martin, a never-before-published Christmas parable for the ages. Fans of Paulo Coelho will immediately recognize the master storyteller's incomparable voice, and will treasure this story's simplicity and poignancy for many Christmas seasons to come.

In a small town in the American South, it is night in the middle of the 20th century. Carter, a high-school teacher and football coach in the newly desegregated schools, is awaiting news of two of his students who have been in a serious altercation. Outside the building where Carter has kept his vigil, a crowd of townspeople have also gathered to keep watch. Carter must choose how much he wants to participate in the spectacle and how much he can afford to keep his distance.

A Charles Dickens Christmas story about remembering the poor, forgotten, and overlooked once a year by the Christmas fire. This grand story sets up the bickering Big Wig family as a guide to the laboring Nobody family, led by a man named Legion, and nothing good comes of it. Legion's master discusses his losses in term of the poor and their habits and diseases. Legion points out it is one world: "What happens to us happens to you."

Thomas Hardy wrote this engaging seasonal story for The Father Christmas Annual in 1877, which was very early in his career. One can just imagine the family sitting by the fireside after the big Christmas lunch, and listening as one member of the family read the story (set in the Wessex countryside he knew so well). By this time, he was already making his mark as a writer. One of his greatest achievements, Far From the Madding Crowd was published three years earlier.

Here is a collection of 25 short stories for the Christmas season to make you laugh, smile, and just feel good about this magical time of year. These delightful stories, written in a variety of genre, all reflect Christmas love, hope, and charity.

Rev. Dr. Steve Burt, the Congregational minister known as The Christmas Story Pastor, has been sharing his emotional holiday stories - modern parables revealing the true meaning of Christmas - for 40 years in print and in read-aloud programs. Millions have heard him read his stories on radio and television, with millions more seeing them in Family Circle or the Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

Revisit Virgin River with two beloved Christmas stories from number one New York Times best-selling author Robyn Carr. 'Tis the season for family, friendship and a perfect holiday romance.

Cosy up for Christmas with this festive story, starring everyone's favourite Victorian foundling, Hetty Feather!An unexpected gift leads to trouble for Hetty on Christmas Day at the Foundling Hospital, and the dreaded Matron Bottomly is delighted to have an excuse to exclude Hetty from the festive celebrations. Poor Hetty is distraught - but just when it seems that all is lost, a dear friend arrives to whisk her away for a Christmas unlike any other....

"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays...and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story.

A down-hearted woman gets a magical candy bar from a sidewalk Santa that transports her into an alternate reality in this enchanting tale of lost love and second chances from author Sandra Edwards.

Se ha perdido un saco repleto de juguetes y se ha atascado el trineo... ¿Llegará Santa Claus a tiempo? Historias de duendes traviesos, árboles de Navidad, juguetes, renos y el mismísimo Papá Noel te harán disfrutar de una Navidad inolvidable.

Christmas Stories and Poems will provide you and your family over an hour of rich family entertainment. On a cold Christmas night, get all comfy by the fire and settle back with a cup of hot chocolate. Relax, and experience the Christmas holiday with a laugh, a chuckle and maybe a tear or two. When you rediscover these classics, you may find that you rediscover your soul.

From horror master Rick Wood, author of The Sensitives and This Book Is Full of Bodies, comes 12 horrifying stories to spook up your Christmas season! From a sadistic secret Santa gift, to a murderous telekinetic fairy, to a nativity full of the undead, you’ll find a horror treat for all 12 days of Christmas.

An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train and sets off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives. Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils) and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista.

Christmas is the season the Gingerbread Café was made for, and Lil has every recipe down, from gingerbread men to cinnamon muffins. So when gorgeous outsider Damon opens a shop opposite the Gingerbread Café in the lead up to Christmas, Lil refuses to let him steal her customers without a fight - no matter how much he makes her heart flutter. When it comes to love, Lil’s never quite got the method right! But as the snow begins to fall, it looks like this time deviating from the recipe might just lead Lil to the magic ingredient she’s been missing all along.